"Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance"

Growing up, and even still today as I consider myself grown, my father loved to spit out quotes.

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”.
“Remember, you are a Duren” (that is my maiden name).
“Bloom where you are planted”.
“Prior planning prevents poor performance.”

I have heard these, and many more of them, hundreds, if not thousands of times in my 30-something years. Now that I own my own business and have my own family, I find it very interesting and even touching, that I not only remember these quotes from my father, but I am putting them in to play.

In my business, planning ahead is crucial and poor performance is not accepted nor tolerated. If my father hadn’t taught me this a long time ago through a simple quote, I would have learned it by now. If you plan ahead and have all your ducks in a row, your performance will be greater than if you didn’t plan ahead.

I know this isn’t always the simplest thing to do. How many things do you have on your to-do list – 20? 50? More? There is always something immediate that needs to be done – bills to pay, emails to write, phone calls to make, etc. But when you take the time to sit down and make a plan, to plan ahead, you will be amazed at what will happen to that to-do list. Somehow, it seems to almost magically shorten itself – very quickly. You figure out your priorities and what items can wait to be dealt with. You look at the long term and what needs to be done now to ensure that your goals are met. You are able to delegate to others. You can breathe.

Marketing, advertising and PR require prior planning in order to assure the best ROI possible. It is something we work very hard at with our clients and we have seen it pay off many, many times. Planning ahead and knowing what is coming up before it is even here can be extremely effective in attracting new customers, increasing your sales, staying on budget and elevating your brand. One of the optimal ways that we do this with our clients is to create a full marketing plan that details all advertising, marketing and PR opportunities that will take place during a given time frame (usually a year) and how much each of those line items will cost. The benefits to having this in place are extraordinary and abundant.

I know you are busy, but time and time again we have seen what prior planning will do – help to prevent poor performance. Take the time. You are worth it. Your business is worth it. Your employees are worth it. And your bottom line will show it.

“Prior planning prevents poor performance”.